


That Old Sickness

by faedemon



Series: faedemon's Ectober Week 2020 [7]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Death, Ectober (Danny Phantom), Ectober Week 2020 (Danny Phantom), Gen, Inspired by The Magnus Archives, Lichtenberg Scars, POV Second Person, Plague, References to past trauma, specifically inspired by MAG 164: The Sick Village
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27315622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faedemon/pseuds/faedemon
Summary: You guess that they have been here long enough that their old reality has begun to break down. You see some of them walk listlessly about with welts on their skin, or oozing boils, or a creeping mold. Others cough what sounds like death rattles, and yet others seem so pale you might see through them. One man bleeds from his eyes. A young girl spews dark bile from her nose and mouth.
Series: faedemon's Ectober Week 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985162
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	That Old Sickness

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Ectober Week Day 7: Cloak/ **Plague** and can be found crossposted on [Tumblr!](https://moipale.tumblr.com/post/633537848559140864/that-old-sickness)

You’ve always known that not all deaths are kind. In fact, kind deaths are far and few between, and yours was hardly an exception—it _hurt_ , when you died. You can still feel the ghost of it.

But I’ll give you that it’s easy to forget. The denizens of the Zone are so loud, so fiery and open, that it’s easy to forget where they came from. Easy to forget your own awful becoming: that bright, live-wire coffin’s nail. Do you remember you screamed through it? Do you remember that your friends screamed, too?

You come across the island some two years into your afterlife. You’ve learned a lot by now, past those early months of attacking on sight, no ghostly knowledge to your name but for how to defend yourself. You’ve cemented for yourself a place in the Ghost Zone, have made Amity Park your lair. You are free to explore the Zone’s endlessness, and—in flight from the increasing responsibilities of your living life—you do.

The island, the Plague Town, is much like Dora’s kingdom in that it is a place frozen in time. The people hardly realize they are dead, and though they acknowledge your presence, they stay desperately clear of you. You are foreign blood. You, to them, are a carrier of the Plague.

You guess that they have been here long enough that their old reality has begun to break down. You see some of them walk listlessly about with welts on their skin, or oozing boils, or a creeping mold. Others cough what sounds like death rattles, and yet others seem so pale you might see through them. One man bleeds from his eyes. A young girl spews dark bile from her nose and mouth.

You don’t allow your boots to touch down, but you don’t leave immediately—it’s a sick (ha-ha) sort of fascination that keeps your eyes locked on those shuffling figures, who seem to do nothing but glare distrustfully at one another and wander about, not going anywhere, not looking for anything.

Your body aches, suddenly, and you pull a glove off to trace the scars that taper off on the back of your hand. That old Lichtenberg figure crawls down your limbs and over your back and up your neck and onto your face, and it seems to burn, to pulsate, and you can feel your death in the echo of it.

Dora’s people had a simple problem. These people, this Plague Town, you can do nothing for.

You leave behind the rot.

**Author's Note:**

> hi! if you liked this, please leave a comment!
> 
> if you want to chat, you can find me on tumblr at my main blog [faedemon](https://faedemon.tumblr.com/) or my sideblog [moipale](https://moipale.tumblr.com/)!!


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